The North Wall of Mount Edith Cavell
The North Wall of Mount Edith Cavell Y v o n C h o u in a r d
M
ount
E d it h C a v e l l , in Jasper N ational Park,
rises on its north side a fu ll 4 0 0 0 feet above its base. Even in norm al years its cliffs are plastered with ice and snow. For D an D oody and me it stood as the symbol o f our ideal, a technical clim b in alpine conditions with objective dangers. H aving discovered the wall independently, we had both fallen under its spell. W e came with K en W eeks in 19 6 0 to clim b it, but it rained and snowed every day. A lso we made the mistake o f looking at the wall too often. It is not a good thing to look at great walls fo r too long a time. B ut w inter restored our confidence. W e made our plans for the summer, collected together the best equipm ent that we could find fo r this, our greatest clim b. I even made some special pitons with no taper fo r the stratified rocks. W e arrived in Jasper in early July with Fred Beckey along to take the place o f K en W eeks, who was in the army. D riv in g up to the tea house at the base o f the wall, I could see that the face was very dry because of the abnorm ally hot May and June. However, the weather now was very poor and we waited out the rain storms in the Jasper Park Lodge. Every m orning at three I would rise and look outside only to see storm clouds. Finally on July 19, the weather bureau predicted clearing weather fo r the next day follow ed by a new fro nt on the follow ing day. Possibly if we got an early start and moved very fast we could clim b the face in one day and beat the storm. T h e next m orning I awoke with a thum ping heart and ran outside to find the sky still overcast and the weather very warm. Disgusted, I did not bother to wake the others. A t seven Doody stormed into my room, asking "W h a t the hell is going on! W h y didn’t you wake m e ? ” T h e sky was perfectly clear. W e woke Beckey and decided to clim b, even though the late start ruined our hopes o f doing the wall in one day. Shouldering our very heavy loads, we quickly walked from the tea house along the glacier to the base o f the face. D oody’s pack was especially heavy as he had a great deal o f movie camera equipm ent. (T h is was to lim it his leading on the clim b .) H e was planning to make a movie on the clim b fo r television. W ith o u t hesitating, we crossed the sim ple bergschrund and started up the easy rocks. It fe lt good to be m oving fast,
not worrying about ropes and pitons, on the enjoyable, steep face on good holds. W e quickly passed a few cairns that Beckey and I had built on a previous reconnaissance. T h ere was not even a hint o f rockfall, and the clim bing was mostly 4th class and easy 5th. W e stayed unroped to save time on the low er third o f the wall as it is threatened by the ice cliff o f the le ft arm o f the A ngel G lacier. In a short time we were at the base o f this 1 50-fo o t cliff. Spotting a gap through it, Beckey led up and over in grand style in three pitches, using no ice pitons. I felt relieved to get above the cliff and on the flat, safe A ngel glacier. Later the entire ice cliff collapsed, covering our route completely. W e trudged up the glacier to the base o f the upper wall where we were greeted by the constant rum bling o f rockfall. T h e route we had picked out from below follow ed a zig-zag system o f ledges and cracks up the center o f the face, but it was there where most o f the rocks were falling. As we looked over to an alternate route on the left, a volley came down, peppering the snow lik e machine-gun fire and dashing our hopes for that route. O nly one possibility was le ft— to go up the very center o f the face via the vertical rock rib which stood out a little way fro m the w all, and we hoped this was free from rockfall. Beckey crossed the difficult bergschrund and sped up the first pitch, a difficult vertical system o f jam cracks. H e moved very fast know ing that his belayers were in constant danger o f rockfall. T h e next thousand feet was moderate to difficult clim bing on very steep rocks, ju st loose enough to keep us alert and to make us distribute our w eight over more than one or two points. Because o f rockfall, every belay spot had to be under an overhang. T o save time, pitons were hardly used except as anchors. T he belayer kept his eyes and ears open fo r rocks. O ne place in particular stands out. A fter an extrem ely rotten and difficult pitch, Beckey was belaying me up when D oody yelled, "R o c k " . I ducked and a rock the size o f a grapefruit hit where my head had been. T h is was one o f the "h igh flyers" w hich were dislodging from 500 to 1 0 0 0 feet up. D oody had the same experience when he came up. W e all huddled under a steep wall. Beckey and I were jumpy, but Doody was very calm and quiet. T h e next lead was m ine and after several false starts I managed to get the courage to leave the "w o m b " and go onto the "sh oo tin g gallery." I came down several times and finally le ft my pack as I could not make the move over a tricky, unprotected overhang. I finally got over it and moved onto the easier rocks as fast as I could. Doody took the next lead and went for 120 feet without any protection in very fast tim e. W h e n I tried to follow I found that I could not make the move and had to use pull from above. It had been a fine lead by D an. A bove the last pitch o f the vertical section o f the buttress, the angle eased off, offering no overhang to belay from . A ll that I could find was a fou r-fo o t boulder, above w hich my head stuck
out a couple o f inches. A s I was bringing Beckey up, I heard a roar and autom atically pulled my head in like a turtle to let a sheet o f snow and sm all rocks shoot over, leaving all the area around me white. It was easier above and the rockfall eased somewhat, but unfortunately the rock became more rotten. Beckey led fo r the rest o f the day as he was clim bing in top form . H e led pitch after pitch o f moderately difficult rock, paralleling a couloir down which avalanches o f rock and snow plunged every few minutes. K now ing we would have to cross this couloir, we dreaded the thought. A t ten
p .m
. we reached the spot. Beckey led up and
put in a poor piton then dropped back down and crossed the verglascovered gully, a m agnificent lead over steep rotten rock. H e stopped only long enough to brush the snow off the hand holds and look fo r the route. W h e n I came across I fully realized how great a lead this was. I led another pitch before Doody was brought up. Beckey went up one final pitch and found a place to bivouac, the first that we saw on the entire face that was large enough to sit down and yet afforded protection fro m the ever present avalanches and rockfall. W e each had a two by three-foot ledge to our selves. It was about m id night and having gone all day without food or water, we were very happy to stop at last. Fast approaching heavy clouds soon showed that it would storm in the m orning. A retreat from here would be im possible, but we fe lt that the worst o f the wall was below us. H aving done so much that day though, we fe lt confident that we could handle anything this terrible wall could offer. It was a warm night and I slept well— one o f the best bivouacs that I have ever had. In the m orning I looked down between my legs at the A ngel G lacier 2 0 0 0 feet below, peered up to a com pletely overcast sky, saw Doody to my left, a black blob on his little ledge, and twenty fe e t up to my right, Beckey who was ju st w aking up. I fe lt very good and very happy to be alive, so good in fact that I started singing, quite a contrast to the day before. A feelin g o f calmness came over me, accompanied by great confidence: I fe lt in v in cib le ! It began to rain just as we started clim bing. I t was easy clim bing on lowangle rock and we moved at a steady deliberate pace. W e were not going to let ourselves be forced to move fast by fear. A fa r cry from yesterday! It began to hail and we could hardly hear each other above the noise o f the wind and thunder. L ightning was hittin g the summ it 8 0 0 feet above us. Clouds moved back and fo rth unveiling ghastly views o f the ice-plastered wall to the right and le ft o f us. In about three hours we reached the summit ice slope. I t looked very steep but not long, possibly two pitches to the summit rocks, but it was to take 5 0 0 feet o f step-cutting before we were to reach them ! T h e ice was in terrible shape. Since it was granular and kept sliding, I had to chop
steps all the way. T h e higher up we got the worse the ice became, w hile the slope continued to steepen. T hrou gh breaks in the clouds D oody and Beckey appeared below me, huddled against the slope trying to avoid the ice chips. B elow them the wall dropped sheer and Eiger-like for 3 5 0 0 feet. Lulls in the storm gave hopes that it would stop, but hail and snow kept us soaked through fo r the rest o f the day. Freezing feet made me chop a little faster but I had to make bigger steps fo r my weaker legs. W ith only a few ice pitons, we had to keep the leads fairly short. M y le ft fo o t had lost all feeling. A fter an interm inable time we reached the summit rocks only a little way from the top, but the face was not going to give in so easily. T h e next 300 feet took everything I had to lead. O n hori zontal bands o f the loosest shale, pitches had to be short because o f the lack o f piton cracks. Each move was a desperate effort to keep from sliding down the wet slabs. Doody belayed perfectly calmly, never com plaining o f countless rocks dislodged onto him . T h e last pitch took me to 8 0 feet above D oody on extrem e rocks with no protection. I got above a small band o f dirt and there I was with my hands on the sum m it! I tried to pull m yself up but could not. M y feet slid continually and my fingers dug deeper into the dirt, but I could not move. I looked across 50 feet to the summ it pole and then down 4 0 0 0 feet to the ground. O G od, what a place to get it! I was afraid fo r the first time during that day. W ith frantic eyes I spotted a tw o-foot long patch o f hard snow ten feet to my right. I very cautiously eased over. It fe lt solid, so I pulled up, m antled and was up. N ever have I fe lt so happy as that day on the summit with my friends. Even though we encountered a great deal o f objective danger I feel there are times when this wall is perfectly safe. W h en we clim bed the wall, it was in very poor condition. Future parties should try to clim b it in cool weather, perhaps the first week o f July, when the summ it ice slope would be in better shape as norm ally nearly all o f the rockfall is caused by the sum m it ice fields avalanching and flushing rocks. Since retreat from high up the face would be next to impossible, enough gear should be taken along to last three days even though in good conditions a two-man party could clim b the wall in one day. T h e summit rocks should be avoided by clim bing the 6 0 ° ice to the left. Speed is the biggest safety factor on nearly any great wall, so it is better to go unroped as much as possible. N o more than 10 pitons need to be taken, two o f which should be k n ife blades.
Summary o f Statistics A r e a : C anadian Rockies. A s c e n t : M ount E d ith Cavell, 1 1 ,0 3 3 feet, July 2 0 -2 1 , 1 9 6 1 — first ascent o f north face. P e r s o n n e l : Fred Beckey, Y v on Chouinard, D aniel Doody.
M
ount
E d it h C a v e l l , in Jasper N ational Park,
rises on its north side a fu ll 4 0 0 0 feet above its base. Even in norm al years its cliffs are plastered with ice and snow. For D an D oody and me it stood as the symbol o f our ideal, a technical clim b in alpine conditions with objective dangers. H aving discovered the wall independently, we had both fallen under its spell. W e came with K en W eeks in 19 6 0 to clim b it, but it rained and snowed every day. A lso we made the mistake o f looking at the wall too often. It is not a good thing to look at great walls fo r too long a time. B ut w inter restored our confidence. W e made our plans for the summer, collected together the best equipm ent that we could find fo r this, our greatest clim b. I even made some special pitons with no taper fo r the stratified rocks. W e arrived in Jasper in early July with Fred Beckey along to take the place o f K en W eeks, who was in the army. D riv in g up to the tea house at the base o f the wall, I could see that the face was very dry because of the abnorm ally hot May and June. However, the weather now was very poor and we waited out the rain storms in the Jasper Park Lodge. Every m orning at three I would rise and look outside only to see storm clouds. Finally on July 19, the weather bureau predicted clearing weather fo r the next day follow ed by a new fro nt on the follow ing day. Possibly if we got an early start and moved very fast we could clim b the face in one day and beat the storm. T h e next m orning I awoke with a thum ping heart and ran outside to find the sky still overcast and the weather very warm. Disgusted, I did not bother to wake the others. A t seven Doody stormed into my room, asking "W h a t the hell is going on! W h y didn’t you wake m e ? ” T h e sky was perfectly clear. W e woke Beckey and decided to clim b, even though the late start ruined our hopes o f doing the wall in one day. Shouldering our very heavy loads, we quickly walked from the tea house along the glacier to the base o f the face. D oody’s pack was especially heavy as he had a great deal o f movie camera equipm ent. (T h is was to lim it his leading on the clim b .) H e was planning to make a movie on the clim b fo r television. W ith o u t hesitating, we crossed the sim ple bergschrund and started up the easy rocks. It fe lt good to be m oving fast,
not worrying about ropes and pitons, on the enjoyable, steep face on good holds. W e quickly passed a few cairns that Beckey and I had built on a previous reconnaissance. T h ere was not even a hint o f rockfall, and the clim bing was mostly 4th class and easy 5th. W e stayed unroped to save time on the low er third o f the wall as it is threatened by the ice cliff o f the le ft arm o f the A ngel G lacier. In a short time we were at the base o f this 1 50-fo o t cliff. Spotting a gap through it, Beckey led up and over in grand style in three pitches, using no ice pitons. I felt relieved to get above the cliff and on the flat, safe A ngel glacier. Later the entire ice cliff collapsed, covering our route completely. W e trudged up the glacier to the base o f the upper wall where we were greeted by the constant rum bling o f rockfall. T h e route we had picked out from below follow ed a zig-zag system o f ledges and cracks up the center o f the face, but it was there where most o f the rocks were falling. As we looked over to an alternate route on the left, a volley came down, peppering the snow lik e machine-gun fire and dashing our hopes for that route. O nly one possibility was le ft— to go up the very center o f the face via the vertical rock rib which stood out a little way fro m the w all, and we hoped this was free from rockfall. Beckey crossed the difficult bergschrund and sped up the first pitch, a difficult vertical system o f jam cracks. H e moved very fast know ing that his belayers were in constant danger o f rockfall. T h e next thousand feet was moderate to difficult clim bing on very steep rocks, ju st loose enough to keep us alert and to make us distribute our w eight over more than one or two points. Because o f rockfall, every belay spot had to be under an overhang. T o save time, pitons were hardly used except as anchors. T he belayer kept his eyes and ears open fo r rocks. O ne place in particular stands out. A fter an extrem ely rotten and difficult pitch, Beckey was belaying me up when D oody yelled, "R o c k " . I ducked and a rock the size o f a grapefruit hit where my head had been. T h is was one o f the "h igh flyers" w hich were dislodging from 500 to 1 0 0 0 feet up. D oody had the same experience when he came up. W e all huddled under a steep wall. Beckey and I were jumpy, but Doody was very calm and quiet. T h e next lead was m ine and after several false starts I managed to get the courage to leave the "w o m b " and go onto the "sh oo tin g gallery." I came down several times and finally le ft my pack as I could not make the move over a tricky, unprotected overhang. I finally got over it and moved onto the easier rocks as fast as I could. Doody took the next lead and went for 120 feet without any protection in very fast tim e. W h e n I tried to follow I found that I could not make the move and had to use pull from above. It had been a fine lead by D an. A bove the last pitch o f the vertical section o f the buttress, the angle eased off, offering no overhang to belay from . A ll that I could find was a fou r-fo o t boulder, above w hich my head stuck
out a couple o f inches. A s I was bringing Beckey up, I heard a roar and autom atically pulled my head in like a turtle to let a sheet o f snow and sm all rocks shoot over, leaving all the area around me white. It was easier above and the rockfall eased somewhat, but unfortunately the rock became more rotten. Beckey led fo r the rest o f the day as he was clim bing in top form . H e led pitch after pitch o f moderately difficult rock, paralleling a couloir down which avalanches o f rock and snow plunged every few minutes. K now ing we would have to cross this couloir, we dreaded the thought. A t ten
p .m
. we reached the spot. Beckey led up and
put in a poor piton then dropped back down and crossed the verglascovered gully, a m agnificent lead over steep rotten rock. H e stopped only long enough to brush the snow off the hand holds and look fo r the route. W h e n I came across I fully realized how great a lead this was. I led another pitch before Doody was brought up. Beckey went up one final pitch and found a place to bivouac, the first that we saw on the entire face that was large enough to sit down and yet afforded protection fro m the ever present avalanches and rockfall. W e each had a two by three-foot ledge to our selves. It was about m id night and having gone all day without food or water, we were very happy to stop at last. Fast approaching heavy clouds soon showed that it would storm in the m orning. A retreat from here would be im possible, but we fe lt that the worst o f the wall was below us. H aving done so much that day though, we fe lt confident that we could handle anything this terrible wall could offer. It was a warm night and I slept well— one o f the best bivouacs that I have ever had. In the m orning I looked down between my legs at the A ngel G lacier 2 0 0 0 feet below, peered up to a com pletely overcast sky, saw Doody to my left, a black blob on his little ledge, and twenty fe e t up to my right, Beckey who was ju st w aking up. I fe lt very good and very happy to be alive, so good in fact that I started singing, quite a contrast to the day before. A feelin g o f calmness came over me, accompanied by great confidence: I fe lt in v in cib le ! It began to rain just as we started clim bing. I t was easy clim bing on lowangle rock and we moved at a steady deliberate pace. W e were not going to let ourselves be forced to move fast by fear. A fa r cry from yesterday! It began to hail and we could hardly hear each other above the noise o f the wind and thunder. L ightning was hittin g the summ it 8 0 0 feet above us. Clouds moved back and fo rth unveiling ghastly views o f the ice-plastered wall to the right and le ft o f us. In about three hours we reached the summit ice slope. I t looked very steep but not long, possibly two pitches to the summit rocks, but it was to take 5 0 0 feet o f step-cutting before we were to reach them ! T h e ice was in terrible shape. Since it was granular and kept sliding, I had to chop
steps all the way. T h e higher up we got the worse the ice became, w hile the slope continued to steepen. T hrou gh breaks in the clouds D oody and Beckey appeared below me, huddled against the slope trying to avoid the ice chips. B elow them the wall dropped sheer and Eiger-like for 3 5 0 0 feet. Lulls in the storm gave hopes that it would stop, but hail and snow kept us soaked through fo r the rest o f the day. Freezing feet made me chop a little faster but I had to make bigger steps fo r my weaker legs. W ith only a few ice pitons, we had to keep the leads fairly short. M y le ft fo o t had lost all feeling. A fter an interm inable time we reached the summit rocks only a little way from the top, but the face was not going to give in so easily. T h e next 300 feet took everything I had to lead. O n hori zontal bands o f the loosest shale, pitches had to be short because o f the lack o f piton cracks. Each move was a desperate effort to keep from sliding down the wet slabs. Doody belayed perfectly calmly, never com plaining o f countless rocks dislodged onto him . T h e last pitch took me to 8 0 feet above D oody on extrem e rocks with no protection. I got above a small band o f dirt and there I was with my hands on the sum m it! I tried to pull m yself up but could not. M y feet slid continually and my fingers dug deeper into the dirt, but I could not move. I looked across 50 feet to the summ it pole and then down 4 0 0 0 feet to the ground. O G od, what a place to get it! I was afraid fo r the first time during that day. W ith frantic eyes I spotted a tw o-foot long patch o f hard snow ten feet to my right. I very cautiously eased over. It fe lt solid, so I pulled up, m antled and was up. N ever have I fe lt so happy as that day on the summit with my friends. Even though we encountered a great deal o f objective danger I feel there are times when this wall is perfectly safe. W h en we clim bed the wall, it was in very poor condition. Future parties should try to clim b it in cool weather, perhaps the first week o f July, when the summ it ice slope would be in better shape as norm ally nearly all o f the rockfall is caused by the sum m it ice fields avalanching and flushing rocks. Since retreat from high up the face would be next to impossible, enough gear should be taken along to last three days even though in good conditions a two-man party could clim b the wall in one day. T h e summit rocks should be avoided by clim bing the 6 0 ° ice to the left. Speed is the biggest safety factor on nearly any great wall, so it is better to go unroped as much as possible. N o more than 10 pitons need to be taken, two o f which should be k n ife blades.
Summary o f Statistics A r e a : C anadian Rockies. A s c e n t : M ount E d ith Cavell, 1 1 ,0 3 3 feet, July 2 0 -2 1 , 1 9 6 1 — first ascent o f north face. P e r s o n n e l : Fred Beckey, Y v on Chouinard, D aniel Doody.
